2023 Advanced PCB Remake For the 800XL -- Revision 1.1

[reifsnyderb]

5 hours ago, Krystone said:

Maybe all of this could be crowdfunded? What sorts of costs are we talking about, or is this a PM question?

It's time, money for parts, and money for boards.  There could easily have to be several prototype boards before a fully working board can be made.

[+mytek]

13 hours ago, Krystone said:

Maybe I am dreaming, but if I am, my dream is to have a full size modern motherboard with:

• Pokey MAX or 2 x POKEY (options for routing stereo, or mixing stereo to mono)
• Ultimate 1MB / 4MB
• SAVO
• SDrive (only full size SD card slot, no display)
• Maybe: External keyboard interface, i.e. AKI PS2
• FujiNet
• VBXE (VBXL?)
• COVOX
• SIO2MIDI
• SIO2PC
• O2 Fixer
• USB-C power input (plenty of USB-C power adapters out there)

If it would be possible to implement most of these things in 1 FPGA and some extra circuitry, it would be amazing. Of course, I am not taking into consideration the fact that there might be copyright issues and some conflicts of interests. Like I said, I am dreaming here.

 

Also, worth considering:

• RAPIDUS (or leave room for expansion)

If all of this could be installed in an elegant way into 800XL, it would be a computer better than Amiga

Since you mentioned FPGA, the Eclair XL project already accomplished most of what's on your list + some improvements. If all you are after is to have this be something to drop into your 800XL case, perhaps someone should open up a dialog with @foft to see if he would open to releasing the design for this purpose.

[Krystone]

4 hours ago, mytek said:

Since you mentioned FPGA, the Eclair XL project already accomplished most of what's on your list + some improvements. If all you are after is to have this be something to drop into your 800XL case, perhaps someone should open up a dialog with @foft to see if he would open to releasing the design for this purpose.

Ideally, what "I am after", but generally would love to see is a collective effort in form of open hardware implementation of everything (that's good) that was developed over the years for Atari 8-bit on a single full size XL/XE board. An FPGA should be used to replace some of the '74 circuitry and PLAs, but also to replace some of the original chips that are becoming scarce. Today, we have some extremely capable and low costs FPGAs from Lattice and perhaps a couple others. I'd like to see a computer that looks like a normal Atari XL/XE, has some Atari chips, but also VBXE graphics capabilities, i.e. 80 column text mode (great for FujiNet and BBS-like stuff) and multicolor modes for game developers. Optionally, working as 65816 at higher speeds to be more capable than Amiga 500/600. Then, we'd have something to play with for the next decades. IMO. But, generally, yes, I want to put it in an Atari case. And it should look like an Atari on the outside. I would love to start programming for VBXE, and perhaps for 65816... And maybe create or port a few games. New demos would pop-up quickly as well. And just imagine the possibilities of FujiNet when you have higher resolution and more colors... A whole new world of ATASCII/ASCII art.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Krystone

[flashjazzcat]

1 hour ago, Krystone said:

New demos would pop-up quickly as well.

Heh. VBXE 2 has been available for fifteen years and is installed in hundreds of real Ataris already, often alongside U1MB and occasionally a 65C816 accelerator board. You can also emulate all of it free of charge and with extreme accuracy in Altirra. The rationale that somehow combining these upgrades into a custom motherboard at the behest of one user will open the floodgates to a deluge of games, demos and productivity applications exploiting these upgrades holds no water whatsoever.

Edited December 4, 2023 by flashjazzcat

[+mytek]

15 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Heh. VBXE 2 has been available for fifteen years and is installed in hundreds of real Ataris already, often alongside U1MB and occasionally a 65C816 accelerator board. You can also emulate all of it free of charge and with extreme accuracy in Altirra. The rationale that somehow combining these upgrades into a custom motherboard at the behest of one user will open the floodgates to a deluge of games, demos and productivity applications exploiting these upgrades holds no water whatsoever.

Yep my feeling as well 👍  I was just holding back from saying anything until someone else piped in.

 

Once again because @Krystone seems perfectly OK with the notion of basing much of this on an FPGA, I still think the Eclair XL project would give you much of what you are asking for. It just needs to be made in the form factor that allows it to fit something like a 800XL case. @Krystone are you familiar with that project by @foft ?

[Krystone]

11 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Heh. VBXE 2 has been available for fifteen years and is installed in hundreds of real Ataris already, often alongside U1MB and occasionally a 65C816 accelerator board. You can also emulate all of it free of charge and with extreme accuracy in Altirra. The rationale that somehow combining these upgrades into a custom motherboard at the behest of one user will open the floodgates to a deluge of games, demos and productivity applications exploiting these upgrades holds no water whatsoever.

Look, generally I agree with you. And I've been following VBXE for many years. 10+ years ago I was very optimistic about it. Don't expect a revolution when it comes to software for this or 65816. There are no incentives for anyone to do that. However, personally, I would do a demo or a game for VBXE, but I feel it lacks YouTube tutorials and code examples (really good ones). The fact that it can be emulated in Altirra is awesome, and this is going to get me started eventually, and some people will run whatever I spit out on the Altirra without investing a penny. All of these extensions should be ideally available installed on a new motherboard (especially now, when FPGAs and RAM chips are cheap). This would convince "some" people to just put a new board in when the old one breaks. They would automatically get all the things they don't need or never used and eventually started using them. The community is still here. I might be dreaming, but I am used to the fact that some of my dreams come true. If you are keen on making money on this hobby, you are in the wrong business though. Having said that, I watch your YT channel and appreciate all that you've done. Truly and sincerely. Anyway, I digress... Let's put it this way. I would like something like that. So, maybe a few other people would like that as well.

[Krystone]

15 minutes ago, mytek said:

Once again because @Krystone seems perfectly OK with the notion of basing much of this on an FPGA, I still think the Eclair XL project would give you much of what you are asking for. It just needs to be made in the form factor that allows it to fit something like a 800XL case. @Krystone are you familiar with that project by @foft ?

Not familiar at the moment. I am about to research it.

[Krystone]

Glanced at Eclair XL. Nice. BTW: Here are the photos I saw. Yes. I'd like something like that in a different form factor. But, it must be 100% cycle accurate, and also for me it also has to do RGB 15kHz to be used on a CRT. IMO, the key to success (and by success I mean limited adoption) would be:

1. An inexpensive PCB that is a drop-in replacement (the cost should not be higher than that of several Atari LSI ASIC chips on the market)
2. No drilling of any holes in the case
3. No soldering.

Eventually, we'll get new Atari cases (either officially, or otherwise), much like the Amiga 1200 case, and new keyboards. I'd love to see all the parts out there to be able to build a new Atari, and in a variety of colors (mix and match)... And if you are wondering if that is still Atari... Ship of Theseus is all I have to say

[reifsnyderb]

The first 4 boards have been shipped.  It appears that the additional 10 boards will be shipped an on their way to me by Wednesday.

[reifsnyderb]

The next 10 board just landed in NYC!  It's possible I'll have them tomorrow.  If not, they are officially scheduled to arrive on Monday.

[Mathy]

Hello guys

On 11/30/2023 at 6:12 AM, reifsnyderb said:

A 600XL board could be done.

 

On 11/30/2023 at 11:37 PM, invisible kid said:

I was thinking about going the other way, a bigger board with integrated 1090/1091. A case that opens and takes cards.

 

Plug a 1090/1091 into a new design 600XL and put both in a case that looks like an Atari 1450 case, that is (re)designed to give easy access to the cards plugged into the 109x.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

 

 

[reifsnyderb]

17 minutes ago, Mathy said:

Hello guys

 

 

Plug a 1090/1091 into a new design 600XL and put both in a case that looks like an Atari 1450 case, that is (re)designed to give easy access to the cards plugged into the 109x.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

 

 

A board could easily be made that is a combination of a 600XL and 1090XL.  The problem is making and producing the case.

[reifsnyderb]

Here's version 1.0 of the build document.  This includes the schematics, BOM, instructions on options, and source code for the PLC's.

 

2023 Advanced PCB Remake For the 800XL V11 r100.pdf

[reifsnyderb]

Looks like it will be Monday until I get the other 10 boards after all.  😞

 

[+scorpio_ny]

Hi @reifsnyderb,

 

Do happen to have a Mouser shopping BOM shopping cart that you would be willing to share 🙂?

[reifsnyderb]

2 minutes ago, scorpio_ny said:

Hi @reifsnyderb,

 

Do happen to have a Mouser shopping BOM shopping cart that you would be willing to share 🙂?

Sorry, but I didn't make a special shopping cart just for the board parts.  Also, I ordered many parts in quantities of 10, or more, so as to get a reduced rate. 

 

I downloaded the big order and here it is:

267589956.xls

 

You'll have to look through it and fix the quantities.  There are also some parts that are missing because I already had a bunch in stock.  Also, if there is a 74LS14 (or similar) in the order, that is a screw-up.  It should be a 74AHCT14 instead.  (I just saw I have a 74LS145.  That was a mistake and I ordered it by accident.)

 

So, I guess you could consider the spreadsheet to be a start.

 

 

 

[+scorpio_ny]

6 hours ago, reifsnyderb said:

Sorry, but I didn't make a special shopping cart just for the board parts.  Also, I ordered many parts in quantities of 10, or more, so as to get a reduced rate. 

 

I downloaded the big order and here it is:

267589956.xls 37.5 kB · 2 downloads

 

You'll have to look through it and fix the quantities.  There are also some parts that are missing because I already had a bunch in stock.  Also, if there is a 74LS14 (or similar) in the order, that is a screw-up.  It should be a 74AHCT14 instead.  (I just saw I have a 74LS145.  That was a mistake and I ordered it by accident.)

 

So, I guess you could consider the spreadsheet to be a start.

 

 

 

Thank you very much! 

[Mathy]

Hello Brian

 

On 12/8/2023 at 1:44 AM, reifsnyderb said:

A board could easily be made that is a combination of a 600XL and 1090XL.

 

 

But then you'd have three boards, one for the 600XL, one for the 1090XL and one for the combination of both.  Two boards take up less time, less money and less storage space than three.  My guess would be that the number of people wanting the combi-board would be relatively small, compared to those wanting either the 600XL board or the 1090XL board.  IMHO the advantages of a single (combi-)board over plugging a 1090XL board into a 600XL board would be minimal.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Mathy

[reifsnyderb]

10 minutes ago, Mathy said:

Hello Brian

 

 

 

But then you'd have three boards, one for the 600XL, one for the 1090XL and one for the combination of both.  Two boards take up less time, less money and less storage space than three.  My guess would be that the number of people wanting the combi-board would be relatively small, compared to those wanting either the 600XL board or the 1090XL board.  IMHO the advantages of a single (combi-)board over plugging a 1090XL board into a 600XL board would be minimal.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

 

Well, I never said I was going to make it.  I only said it was possible.   🙂     Realistically, if such an Atari 600XL + 1090XL board were to be made, it should be an industry standard PC board (ATX or otherwise) so that it could be stuffed into a mini tower or desktop case.  If the card slots were to be lined up with the case card slot holes, and spaced the correct distance away from the holes, 1090 cards could be used.  @mytek 's transkey could be used for the keyboard so a PS/2 keyboard would work.  (Maybe even have the transkey on it's own board so that a future USB keyboard interface could be swapped in?)  Also, it could be designed to use the stock PC power supply.  This would eliminate all of the problems with a case and keyboard.  I suppose that a parallel port connector could be put near the drive bays, too.

 

 

 

[reifsnyderb]

No boards delivered today.  They apparently stayed in the courier's truck.   😞

 

[+mytek]

27 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said:

No boards delivered today.  They apparently stayed in the courier's truck.   😞

If they were coming via DHL, I've had some issues with them lately. On the last board delivery from JLCPCB the DHL website showed it scheduled to arrive on a certain day (showed out for delivery), but I was home all day and it never arrived. That evening I got an email from DHL saying that they were unable to deliver because no one was home to sign for it. I thought "what the heck, I was home!", so I checked the RING just in case I had missed them somehow, and there was nothing. Long story short I authorized a next day delivery without signature, and it did indeed arrive and was dropped off on my front porch as I had instructed. So weird that they said they had tried the day before.

[Mark2008]

On 12/4/2023 at 12:32 AM, Krystone said:

I would do a demo or a game for VBXE, but I feel it lacks YouTube tutorials and code examples (really good ones)

Just curious, but have you searched AtariAge for that, I mean for tutorials and additional code examples, not videos?  About the time I was porting Runway 180 to Altirra Basic and Altirra OS with VBXE support - another dude here his name was Stephen was writing a tutorial on it.  

 

Personally, my experience with doing a minor port of a game in basic, was I was very grateful for earlier work that had been sent out as examples, but I also had to really look at all the examples repeatedly to eventually discover a few things that weren't immediately obvious to me.

 

Not to take the thread down a different path, I will just say, there are just a few things to get started.  Detecting the VBXE and turning it on.  Transferring from a picture on your disk to the memory of the vbxe, and then using the blitter.   One can do a lot with just that, before delving deep into all the features, which are really cool.   

 

I've spent the last year writing apps in python that use AI like llama-2 or gpt-4 and various vector databases, and in my mind everything is easy now.  Just load up a bog standard "ask questions of my docs" app and the bot will tell you everything about VBXE.

 

I tried this last weekend with a relatively rare language called PL65 for the Atari - and it was really cool to see how it can actually program in PL65.  Of course it isn't perfect yet, but quite useful.

[reifsnyderb]

2 minutes ago, mytek said:

If they were coming via DHL, I've had some issues with them lately. On the last board delivery from JLCPCB the DHL website showed it scheduled to arrive on a certain day (showed out for delivery), but I was home all day and it never arrived. That evening I got an email from DHL saying that they were unable to deliver because no one was home to sign for it. I thought "what the heck, I was home!", so I checked the RING just in case I had missed them somehow, and there was nothing. Long story short I authorized a next day delivery without signature, and it did indeed arrive and was dropped off on my front porch as I had instructed. So weird that they said they had tried the day before.

I've had that happen with Fed Ex in the past.  That shipment didn't require any signature or anything.  Just drop it off.  I found out when I saw the tracking change to indicate the package wasn't dropped off because I wasn't home.  I know darn well the guy never dropped by and just decided he'd worry about it later.  I called the local Fed Ex hub and had a fit.  They contacted him and he later delivered.  🙂

 

Today, I think I stepped out for a few minutes when DHL dropped by.  The thing is that I could have sworn I had the delivery authorized without a signature.  So, I checked and it didn't show that I authorized it.  Maybe the website glitched or something.  I don't know what happened.  Lately, DHL has been doing pretty good but I think they have a different courier.

 

[kenames99]

14 hours ago, mytek said:

If they were coming via DHL, I've had some issues with them lately. On the last board delivery from JLCPCB the DHL website showed it scheduled to arrive on a certain day (showed out for delivery), but I was home all day and it never arrived. That evening I got an email from DHL saying that they were unable to deliver because no one was home to sign for it. I thought "what the heck, I was home!", so I checked the RING just in case I had missed them somehow, and there was nothing. Long story short I authorized a next day delivery without signature, and it did indeed arrive and was dropped off on my front porch as I had instructed. So weird that they said they had tried the day before.

hi mytek,

  <rant>I have had that happen with fedex and ups. I call them up and verbally bitchslap them up when that happens. that is a wasted day you will never get back afaiac/imho. of course I never sit around doing nothing while waiting but still, the idea that they think they can get away with that sh**! annoys me a lot. </rant>

 

Ken

 

[+kheller2]

The mail systems don't have the "I didn't get to deliver it today because ..." option.